Reply #11: It's even harder to be hopeful when you look at the bigger picture.

[Gregorian]

Yes, the thing you mention are immediate and important. But I spend a lot of my mental time looking at the effects of global warming. Of population. I recently met someone who just got back from living in China for the last fifteen years. He went into a village, and by the time he left it was a massive city with highrise buildings. The carbon footprint of China is going to push this planet over the edge. I lost my hope in the 70's. I saw the fields turn to cement. I've edited this post. Hope is not knowing that China WILL push the planet over the edge. I don't know that it will. I caught myself going into hopelessness again.

I wanted to say that regardless of the situation, hope comes from having a sense that tomorrow will be at least as good as today, for me and for you. It comes from a level of certainty.

It's this certainty that we are lacking. Things look like they are going to be worse tomorrow.

Avoidance works. But it stops working.

I don't have a good answer, except to say that the human mind is limitless. That, right now, is the only thing giving me hope. Who would have thought that Wikileaks would be so brilliant as to get the evil monsters in a huff? And everyone isn't a Dick Cheney. There are good people out there.

We aren't guaranteed any hope. We have to manufacture it.